Wednesday, May 19, 2010

We often hear about the bleak situation of the Hebrew spoken by students in the schools. In a document published after the latest matriculation exams, senior Education Ministry inspectors once again sounded the alarm. The report also included recommendations to teachers for improving the situation by focusing on thinking and analysis, in order to give students tools for dealing with tasks through deep understanding of the material.

Reports and recommendations of this sort are published from time to time and we often encounter statements to the effect that students have difficulty with questions requiring analysis and understanding or fail to accomplish tasks because they do not understand words and concepts and the like. However, despite all the reports, papers and recommendations submitted in recent years, there has been no improvement. These documents have not succeeded in causing a turnaround because they are off the mark.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” according to Proverbs 18:21. It could be said that all human creativity, in all areas of culture including the exact sciences, is dependent on language. Language is the tool for thinking and the richer a person’s language is, the richer his thinking will be, and vice versa. Moreover, it is not enough that language be the province of the few. Richness of language, including grammar and syntax, must be the province of every student in the schools.

To what is this comparable? To a society in which the wealth is in the hands of the few while the majority of the citizenry is living in poverty. Such a society will be considered poor because the wealth is not spread through the entire society. The same is true of richness of language. Without instilling richness of language into the society as a whole, there is no meaning to the dictionary wealth standing on the shelf or in the hands of a few.

The deterioration of the level of young people’s language in recent years is in part caused by the media, in which companies and individuals with commercial interests and their chase after ratings dictate the content. The captains of the broadcasting networks put the emphasis on various sorts of voyeuristic programming. When instead of bringing on the air intelligent, knowledgeable individuals and scientists whose language is rich and whose minds are acute, they highlight feeble-minded and inarticulate celebrities – so it is no wonder the level of the language of young people who flock to the follies of celebrity is so low.

The growing gap between spoken Hebrew and standard Hebrew is pushing the language into the corner Arabic has been inhabiting for generations now. The duality in the Arabic language plays an important role in delaying the development of Arab societies – as noted, complex thinking and creativity are not possible without rich, precise language.

The Hebrew language is undergoing a process of desertification similar to the desertification that has been experienced by the Arabic language. This processes is causing the achievements in the schools to deteriorate. As the gap between the spoken and the standard language grows wider, and as long as richness of language is not instilled in everyone in the society from an early age, scholastic achievements will continue to deteriorate.

To reverse this process, the language wilderness must be made to bloom and richness of language must be instilled in all the students and teachers in Israel, both Jews and Arabs. The spoken language, be it Hebrew or Arabic, is not only distancing and alienating the population from the rich, precise language of creativity – it is also leading to shallowness of thought regardless of age.To those who are seeking the root of the problem it can therefore be said: Go to Arabic, thou sluggard, consider its ways and be wise.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

When cats decide to sleepnothing disturbs their night.It's we who make the noisegoing from fight to fight.When cats decide to dreamnothing can change their minds.It's we who spoil their nightwith snores of many kinds.

One snores as if he speaks.Sometimes it sounds like French,but you who sleep so deepon a bed made of a bench.

The Arab world's quagmire

Only a society that can engage in introspection and self-examination can emerge from its dark past and march confidently to a different future. Otherwise, it will continue to sink into the same marshy swamp.

A Feeble Middle East

The West learned on its own flesh that this region conducts itself by other codes. Iran has continued to entrench its standing by means of its religious ideology. The toppling of Saddam Hussein shattered the illusion of the existence of a unifying “Iraqi identity” and gave an encouraging shot in the arm to Iran, which is forging ahead.

The decay in the Arab world

Neither Arab nor Spring

The vicissitudes that have, for some reason, been collectively dubbed the "Arab Spring" are neither Arab nor Spring. One can say that they are actually living proof of the identity crisis and reverberating bankruptcy of Arab nationalism.

Our troubles come from us

Never-ending tragedy

The Israeli right, in all its forms, wants exclusively Jewish control over all of the Land of Israel. To the Palestinians who live in this space, it promises residency – temporary, of course, on condition that they keep their heads down, accept their designated status and behave accordingly.

For Jews only

From the moment the pundits followed in the footsteps of the politicians, both large and small, they carried this noxious melody everywhere. They were part of legitimizing the illegitimate in Israeli politics.

With yearning soul

The Zionism that aspired to establish a "Jewish home" in the Jews' "ancient homeland" did not take into consideration the fact that the land was not empty. It thus adopted the principle of population transfer, based on the same ancient biblical tradition.